Problem Drinking Rising Fast Among Older Americans

In the New York Times (9/14, Span, Subscription Publication) “The New Old Age” blog, Paula Span writes, “Epidemiologists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism…reported” that “problem drinking is rising fast among older Americans.”

Researchers arrived at that conclusion after comparing “data from a national survey taken in 2001 and 2002 and again in 2012 and 2013, each time with about 40,000 adults.” The findings were published in the September issue of JAMA Psychiatry. The author of an accompanying editorial observed, “The trajectory over time is remarkable.”

Lead study author and NIAAA epidemiologist Bridget Grant, PhD, and her “team didn’t investigate causes” for late-life drinking, “but she speculates that anxiety caused by the recession, which hit right between the two surveys, may have played a part.”

Related Links:

— “Alcohol Abuse Is Rising Among Older Adults,” Paula Span, New York Times, September 14, 2017.

Posted in In The News.